How To Predict Prostate Cancer – DURHAM, N.C. – One in nine men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime, with the average age of diagnosis at 66, and many of them won’t survive.
“Death from prostate cancer is at an all-time high… 29,000 deaths a year in the United States,” shared Dr. Daniel George, a professor of medicine and surgery at Duke Cancer Institute.
Catching the cancer early could greatly improve a man’s chances of living with it.
RELATED: A Urine Test For Prostate Cancer On The Way
“As prostate cancer screening has decreased, we’ve actually seen men presenting with a little bit more advanced and aggressive disease,” George continued.
In a new study, researchers followed more than 200,000 men for six to seven years. They found the men with higher concentrations of two hormones in their blood, free testosterone and IGF 1, were more likely to develop prostate cancer over the course of the study.
Specifically, men with the highest levels of IGF 1 had a 25% greater risk and those with the highest free testosterone levels had an 18% higher risk.
Other predictors that may raise the risk of prostate cancer include being older or obese, having a family history of the disease, or being a black man.
In this study, the researchers said that because the blood tests were taken some years before the prostate cancer developed, it is likely that the hormone levels are leading to the increased risk of prostate cancer, as opposed to the cancers leading to higher levels of the hormones.
